1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to parental controls for entertainment digital media in the arts of music, video and games. More particularly, the present invention provides for an extensible and flexible way of controlling a user's access to entertainment content using dynamic data defined by a rating definition file, entertainment content definition file and user permission settings.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Rating systems for entertainment media have existed in one form or another for several decades. Probably the most common known rating system in the United States is the movie rating system defined by the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA), a division of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The rating system was established in the late 1960's and was the only entertainment rating system for any media for almost two decades. Growing concern over explicit content in other areas of the entertainment industry urged the music and interactive software industries to adopt rating guidelines of their own. Accordingly, in 1985 the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) established Parental Advisory Program guidelines that identified music releases that contained explicit lyrics, including explicit descriptions of violence and sex. Following suit in 1994, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), formally the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), established the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) that independently applies and enforces ratings, advertising guidelines, and on-line privacy principles adopted by the industry.
Although the entertainment industries have done a lot to identify explicit content within the various media sold so that parents can make intelligent entertainment content choices for their children, there is still much to be done in the enforcement area for these industries. For example, because the various rating systems are only established as guidelines by the individual industries, compliance with these guidelines is voluntary. Accordingly, retailers receive little if any penalties for selling explicit materials containing mature content to minors. Further, there are some that feel enforcement of these guidelines on point-of-sale retailers forces the parenting responsibilities onto the retailers. Nevertheless, many manufacturers and retailers of entertainment content have established policies within the individual companies to adhere to the guidelines set out by the various entertainment industries.
Regardless of the compliance or non-compliance by point-of-sale retailers, the fact remains that children often obtain entertainment content that their parents do not approve of. Pressure is mounting within the everyday public for stronger protections to be provided to the children of concerned parents. Accordingly, manufacturers of the players for entertainment content have established parental controls that allow parents to more effectively supervise the entertainment content their children can play. For example, most DVD players and game consoles currently have some form of parental control that allows a parent to set a maximum entertainment content rating. Therefore, unless an override code is entered, the content played is restricted to ratings that are equal to or below the parental control rating. Further, cable and dish boxes, along with Internet software, provide a way to limit the movie content and website content that a minor can view. In addition, some gaming consoles support rating systems from various regions throughout the world.
Although the above-described and other parental control systems have advanced enforcing rating guidelines for the various entertainment media, there still exist several deficiencies and drawbacks of current systems. For example, there is currently no system that supports parental controls for multiple users. Accordingly, a parent having several children in various age groups cannot set parental controls separately for each child. Further, these systems only support age based rating enforcement, and provided no further limitations based on content descriptors. Moreover, rating systems evolve over time. Although changes are infrequent, content descriptors come and go, and top-level ratings are sometimes added or deleted. Because the above-identified parental control systems are coded, rather than data-driven, they are not expandable and updatable. In addition, there are no per-game exceptions to the age-based systems, and therefore a parent does not have the flexibility in specifically choosing entertainment content that a child can or cannot play.
For at least those reasons stated above, there exists a need for methods, systems and computer program products that provide parental controls that provide multiple users access to entertainment content using dynamic data for expanding and updating the system. Further, there exists a need for an age-based parental control system that is further limited by descriptors and per-game exceptions.